The Wonky Donkey

This is a really funny rhyming book for children,

There isn’t a whole lot one would expect to see when looking at a donkey, but such is not the case with this picture book. There is a lot of tongue-twisting, long-winded, catch-phrasing going on in this story. It all happens when a little yellow bird just happens to be sitting on an old fence

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post by the side of the road and sees a donkey hobbling along. The bird notices that the donkey has some very interesting things about him, he's missing a leg and an eye to name a few. The little yellow bird just keeps adding these interesting qualities and it’s quite interesting to see if you have enough breath to say them all.

Water color illustrations bring donkey and bird to life. The readers in the age range of 5 to 9 yrs will get a close and personal view of the donkeys many attributes. Teachers and parents will enjoy this picture book as much as children. The quirky lyrics will make everyone giggle. Children will learn a new song that can be downloaded from the Scholastic website. This book is very interactive and helps children understand that we are all different and that’s not a bad thing.

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Good for kids under 5 years old

Smith has written an absolutely hilarious song which has been transformed into a fantastic children's book by illustrator Katz Cowley. We learn new things about our donkey until we reach the end with a spunky, hanky-panky cranky stinky dinky lanky honky-tonky winky wonky donkey, a mouthful for

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adults reading aloud! The song won an APRA Silver Scroll Award in 2008 for Best Children's Song of the Year. Great entertainment!

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This book, read by a Scottish grandma to her grandchild, was a hoot on Facebook. She couldn't help but laugh hysterically as she read it to the baby. Little did I know at the time that it was not only the silly, rhyming words about a donkey with three legs and one eye that set the grandma into the

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giggles but also the illustrations by Katz Cowley that bring it home.
I've got to say, though, it's rather sad to be laughing at this disabled donkey who has some issues but the bright side is those issues are not keeping him down and he's enjoying life non-the-less.

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This book is a cumulative rhyme about meeting a donkey with a variety of characteristics including three legs, one eye, a love of country music, a sense of style, etc. Each time a new thing is introduced about his personality, a new adjective is added to his description, increasing the number of

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rhymes used.

This book is from a British author and word meanings can differ between American English and British English, but it felt a bit insensitive to call a donkey "wonky" because he only has three legs. I worry about children with disabilities seeing that and thinking others are mocking them. The cumulative rhyme format doesn't do a whole lot for me when there's no actual story.

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This book is good and hard to read without laughing!!!

I know this book is popular, and it’s a great example of word play, but I find the characterization of the disabled donkey to be mean spirited and hurtful.

Absolutely love this book, it’s hilarious! Bought it to read to my granddaughter, and found it to be one of my favorites!

Perhaps this is one you really need to listen to the song to get the full effect

This originally appeared in Grandpappy's Corner at The Irresponsible Reader.
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WHAT'S WONKY DONKEY ABOUT?
Lifted from the lyrics of a children's song, the book starts:

I was walking down the road and I saw...
a donkey,
Hee Haw!

And goes on from there to describe this unfortunate equine in more and

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more detailed (and ridiculous) ways--starting with its three legs, going on to describe its taste in music, coffee consumption, attitude, attractiveness, and so on.

LET'S TALK ABOUT THE ART FOR A MINUTE
Katz Cowley is fantastic. The natural world and physical objects are presented in a great realistic fashion--heightened just a bit. The titular donkey and a bird that shows up in every scene, however, are a goofy cartoonish exaggeration of that fashion

I don't know who decided to give this donkey a prosthetic leg--but it only comes up in the illustrations, so I'm going to give Cowley credit for it. It's a great detail on many levels.

The expressions on the bird and donkey are the stars of the show--better than the words (by a crooked hair). I don't know how a child can look at them and not want to stare. Or not wanting to pick up the book for another reading session.

Especially when a child is the age of the target audience, the adult reading the book is going to see themselves in the coffee-less expression of the donkey on the page talking about the caffeine deprivation. So everyone wins?

You can see some of the art, and learn more about the book, on Cowley's website.

HOW IS IT TO READ ALOUD?
Ohhh boy. This is going to be hard to convey. First, it was only after I'd read this that I took the time to track down the song, but I couldn't help but get a sing-songy cadence and voice as I read it. I also found myself talking faster and faster as I went through the book--like there was this unconscious effort on my part to spend the same amount of time reading each pair of pages--like a snowball rolling downhill, growing bigger and getting faster. This is great and all, but it's also kind of a workout of both stamina and verbal dexterity.

You can't help having fun with these lines--even as they build up and repeat like the 12 Days of Christmas. Really, try being expressionless or frowny while saying "He was a hanky-panky crank stink-dinky lanky honky-tonky wink wonky donkey." You can't, can you?

You might need to start using a spirometer before cracking this thing open though. As fun as it is, you're going to end up getting requests for encores, and after 2-3 readings in a row, it's going to lose a little bit of its charm. So keep something else around so you can switch to it for a minute or two before having to come back.

(between you and me, the song isn't my style. I really hope the Grandcritter doesn't discover it, because it feels like the kind of thing that'd you'd have to listen to 30 times a day--like that ditty about an infant scaleless predatory fish)

SO, WHAT DID I THINK ABOUT WONKY DONKEY?
A couple of weeks ago, my wife was telling a friend about our prep work for grandkids, including all the books we're starting to stockpile. Once she got over being aghast that we'd never heard of The Wonky Donkey, she insisted that we fix this. We dutifully complied and it's either one of the best moves we've made or one of the worst (see what I said above about reading it).

Joking aside, this is a great book for the intended age group. I'm going to have to do a deep dive into both the work of Smith and Cowley.

The other thing my wife's friend told us was to get the board book--and she was right again. Parents/Grandparents/Etc. Do NOT get the paperback or hardcover. If the child(ren) doesn't/don't like the book, you'll have spent too much money. If they do like the book (the more likely outcome), they will destroy it. It's going to demand the number of re-re-re-re-reads that anything else won't hold up to it. It's also going to end up being one of those books a kid is going to carry around with them and flip through themselves--a lot. Paperbacks/hardcovers will not survive the gumming, accidental ripping, deliberate ripping, and overall expressions of toddler love that are so destructive.

I can't see where this doesn't become a tongue-tying obsession. The book you know the kid will love, you enjoy (the first few times a day you read it), you end up memorizing without trying to and just hope your lung capacity holds out during. It's fun, it's goofy, and it's the kind of thing you'll look back on in fondness.

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Get ready for some punny, tongue-twisting fun! If you've got a southern accent under your belt (which I do not), this one is even better. There's also a song version of this on YouTube.